A land use plan that stakes out conservation and economic boundaries in Nunavut is inching closer to reality as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s major projects agenda gathers steam.

The recommended Nunavut Land Use Plan, decades in the making, proposes how the vast Arctic region should be managed. Nunavut covers one-fifth of Canada’s land mass, a whopping portion of the planet’s Arctic and will be the single largest Indigenous land claim in the country if finalized.

As Carney stickhandles his nation-building agenda, accepting the Nunavut Land Use Plan offers Ottawa an opportunity to build — but to do so requires rejecting long-standing mining sector objections.

The mining industry wields tremendous influence in Nunavut. Last year, mining and quarrying contributed $1.2 billion to the

See Full Page